Iraqi forces to begin assault on militants this weekend

~ This will be the first step to contain Sunni insurgents and Shiite death squads.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops will begin a neighborhood-by-neighborhood assault on militants in the capital this weekend as a first step in the new White House strategy to contain Sunni insurgents and Shiite death squads, key advisers to the prime minister said Friday.

The first details of the plan -- a fresh bid to pacify the capital -- emerged a day after President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spoke for nearly two hours by video conference. Both leaders were expected to detail their vision of a new strategy in the coming days.

The al-Maliki aides would not address the scope of the planned assaults nor where specifically they were planned.

The Iraqis did, however, signal continuing disagreement on key issues, including al-Maliki's unease over the introduction of more U.S. troops.

Another point of contention has been the Iraqi leader's repeated refusal of U.S. demands to crush the militia of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, one of the prime minister's most powerful backers.

Any serious drive to curb the extreme chaos and violence in the capital would put not only American forces but al-Maliki's Iraqi army in direct confrontation with al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

Gaining ground

The militants are gaining more and more ground as they kill Sunni residents of the city and drive others from their neighborhoods. The explosion of vengeance began after the Feb. 22 bombing by al-Qaida in Iraq militants of an important Shiite shrine, the Golden Dome mosque in Samarra north of the capital.

Sami al-Askari, an al-Maliki political adviser, said Friday that al-Maliki had not acquiesced to the reported White House plan to send as many as 9,000 more U.S. troops to Baghdad alone.

"President Bush told the prime minister he was ready to send additional troops, but al-Maliki said he would have to talk that over with his senior military officers to see if they were needed," al-Askari said.

Bush reportedly wants to increase troop strength as part of his developing plan to shake up the U.S. military effort in Iraq, now in its fourth year.

Without a substantial U.S. troop increase there were questions about the success of any new drive to curb violence.

Last summer the U.S. military and Iraqi army flooded the capital with 12,000 additional troops for the same purpose. By October, the U.S. military spokesman said the operation had not met expectations and the situation was disheartening. The last half of 2006 was one of the most violent periods in the center and west of the country since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Pressing for withdrawal

In his discussions with Bush, al-Maliki continued to press for a rapid U.S. withdrawal from the capital to bases "on the outskirts of Baghdad," al-Askari said. The prime minister has claimed his forces will be ready to assume control of security for the whole country by summer. The Americans, perhaps optimistically, hope that can happen by year's end.

Al-Askari and Hassan al-Suneid, another top al-Maliki aide and lawmaker from his Dawa Party, said the fresh security push would be open-ended once initiated this weekend.

"The Iraqi Interior, Defense and National Security ministries will take part using information we have gathered from a new intelligence network," al-Suneid said. "There will be no time limit, and there will be many stages to the operation."

Al-Suneid said American forces would take part in a supporting role.

As forces apparently began to get ready, the powerful Association of Muslim Scholars voiced Sunni agitation and claimed the coming drive was really a joint operation by Interior Ministry commandos, the Iraqi army and the Mahdi Army to further cleanse mixed neighborhoods. Iraq's security forces are dominated by Shiites.

Sheik Mohammed Bashar al-Fayadh, a spokesman for the organization, claimed residents had seen 150 vehicles massing Friday in the Shula region in northwest Baghdad in advance of the assault.

"We fear a huge attack," al-Fayadh said on Al-Jazeera satellite television.

Throughout Iraq on Friday, at least 31 people died violently or were found dead, including two beheaded victims of the sectarian slaughter found floating in the Tigris River.

The body of an Associated Press employee was found shot in the back of the head Friday, six days after he was last seen by his family leaving for work. Ahmed Hadi Naji, 28, was the fourth AP staffer to die violently in the Iraq war and the second AP employee killed in less than a month. He had been a messenger and occasional cameraman for the AP for 21/2 years.

"All of us at AP share the pain and grief being felt by Ahmed's family and friends," said AP President and CEO Tom Curley.

The circumstances of Naji's death were unclear. Dozens of Iraqis are found slain almost every day in Baghdad, many believed to be victims of sectarian death squads.

An American contractor was abducted Friday along with his driver and translator, and the two Iraqis were later found dead near a stadium in the southern city of Basra, police said. The fate of the American was unknown.

"The two victims were the translator and a driver," said a Basra police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Basra's police chief, Gen. Mohammed Humadi, confirmed that a U.S. citizen had been kidnapped and said he was an American of Iraqi origin. The contractor's name and the company for which he worked were not disclosed.

French President Jacques Chirac, meanwhile, said the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq destabilized the entire Middle East and caused terrorism to spread, adding that the problems in Iraq justified France's strong opposition to the war.

"As France foresaw and feared, the war in Iraq caused upheavals whose effects have not yet finished unraveling," Chirac said in a speech to French ambassadors.

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AP Military Writer Robert Burns in Washington and AP reporter Christine Ollivier in Paris contributed to this report.